The thing with Athena is she’s supposed to be this prodigy, and how many times in the real world do we see gifted children struggle to grasp with the real world? It would make a lot of sense
Hi, we're someone with a dissociative disorder similar to Uendo, and we had a thought for the longest time that... what if Uendo was Athena's assistant? Not only do they fit in with Athena's psychological approach, not only do they actively confirm they're a huge fan of murder mystery marathons... but they actually can twist the knife in on Athena kind of sucking/failing, when you think about it. Uendo was outted for having DID from her, and they... then lost their teacher and only co-worker leaving them totally alone at their theater. I'd be interesting if there was an assistant who isn't actually a fan of how you do your lawyering?
I feel like these two ideas could be really good together. Athena using her therapy powers to help fix this splintered family. How would she react to people she thinks of as her friends suddenly being at each other's throats. Case 1 would set up Athena's struggling and end with Phoenix suddenly rushing off. Case 2 would be the one she loses. Case 3 as the mock trial to get her out of the darkest hour. Case 4 would then be Athena going to Khurain, using what she's learned in a case that helps to bring the gang back together before the retrial that sees everyone behind Athena as she goes on point to win. It could undersell the emotions and perspectives of Apollo and the other characters more directly involved with the family melodrama but I think it could be very effective to see changes from the outside.
This video was really good. I really like the idea of more character driven plots for these games, since the characters are the main reason I got attached to this franchise in the first place.
Like the video but I’m sorry even with the explanation I can’t get behind Phoenix acting like that, I prefer what the games seemingly imply with him just respecting lammys right to wait, this was just thrust onto her and she’s an amnesiac before this. She needs time and I think that’s understandable, and SOJ shows she’s came around finally
Honestly, I think what might be somewhat interesting is if the games followed a character's child. We had TGAA which were lawyers of the past, so why not lawyers of the future? It could interesting to see old Phoenix Wright 🤔
9:48 I still wanna see Rayfa again. Maybe she should be the assistant on some sort of Diplomatic visit. And obviously becomes the defendant. I was thinking about the idea of making the main prosecutor Borginian. Borginia is presented as kind of this former communist Baltic government. So an idea would be to have the prosecution having to deal with PTSD from a thinly veiled allegory for the Yugoslav wars (Yes I know the Yugoslav states aren't Baltic) or for something more topical, borrow elements from both the Russo-Ukraini war and the 2023 Israel-Gaza war. It's not like the Ace Attorney franchise shys away from current political allegory. Maybe make him a former prosecutor for war crime tribunals if that's not too dark. And then have Athena deal with his mental illness while defending Rayfa or Apollo or something.
I like when events are set up in advance but having Phoenix removed from the plot combine that with most of the characters reused from previous games makes this hypontheical Athena game feel like a spin off. Maybe have Phoenix pre-occupied with something in the background like buying back the Wright & Co. Law Offices while still supporting Athena as a mentor, that way the Wright/Gramarye/Justice family drama can take center stage in the next game without intteruption.
My idea for putting Pheonix out of commission is for him to get sick, similar to how he got sick in bridge to turnabout. For two reasons, one is that that case heavily featured Pheonix finishing what his mentor started and burying those issues and the trauma there of, at least thematically. This would be Athena's mentor calling back to that with a less permanent way of making him unable to lawyer, highlighting that this is the end of Athena's trilogy. And 2nd, this would be a reference where they dance around directly spoiling it for a logical reason cause it'd be a bit weird for Pheonix to trauma dump on Athena like this and given we know what happened that case we know "long story" definitely qualifies for that, albeit a really good one. Maybe show her looking up the case file as another reference to Bridge to Turnabout. Lastly, it'd be funny to get calls from Pheonix in the hospital and have him react to whatever insane shit is happening in the plot at any given time.
